The following is not the plot to an upcoming Bond film: Russian bootstrap billionaire and Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich announced that his construction company, Infrastruktura, would spend $160 million on the world's largest drill. The drill, five meters wider than the current champ, built by the same German concern, Herrenknecht, would be used to improve the grounds around the Black Sea resort of Sochi, site of 2014 Olympics and favorite hangout of both Stalin and Putin. The company says it will not be used to drill a subterranean roadway from Far Eastern Russia to Alaska. Not yet, at least.

According to the Daily Mail:

There was speculation the soccer boss may have bought the machine in league with Putin in the hope of gaining approval from America for a plan both men are said to have long savoured—building a tunnel from the frozen wastes of the Russian region of which Abramovich is governor, Chukotka, to Alaska beneath the Bering Strait.

A spokesman for Infrastruktura dispelled the rumor, saying:"This drill project is unconnected to any plans in [Chukotka]. The drill will be used in Moscow, Sochi, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, and other [err, unnamed] Russian cities."

But then he added: "Before building a tunnel between [Chukotka] and Alaska, there should be a road built between Anadyr, the capital of Chutotka, and the rest of Russia."

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So, like, once the road is built...what? Presumably the spokesman then only put his pinky in his mouth and began to laugh diabolically. [Daily Mail]